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I will be donating a unit of blood next Monday the 23rd. From personal experience I was wondering how long it will take for me to feel 100% where I feel just as strong as before. Also any suggestions would be helpful. As a reference I am 64 205 lbs and do 60 mile rides.

_________________"Really fast people are frustrating, but they make you faster. When you get faster, you might frustrate someone else."

Generally speaking you should have recovered (depending on volume given) in about 4hrs, the body makes blood fast. However I would recommend no exercise for 24hrs. Then assess how you feel.

FWIW at work we did a n=3 test of exercise 4 hrs after giving blood (ensuring enough food and water intake). General reports were greater levels of fatigue and sooner, and one reported feeling light headed. Otherwise no change (please note I am not endorsing exercise post blood giving!).

YMMV.

_________________"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study.""I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

Thanks for the advise. I'm hoping there is someone here that has donated blood in season that can offer their experience. What's interesting because I ride all year it has prevented me from donating in the past. Probably quite a few people here thinking the same.

_________________"Really fast people are frustrating, but they make you faster. When you get faster, you might frustrate someone else."

"A study has been done looking at the effects of blood donation on exercise performance in competitive cyclists. This study evaluated 10 male cyclists before and after phlebotomy (donating blood), to determine the effect of donation of one unit of blood on exercise performance. Each subject underwent maximal exercise testing with oxygen consumption measurement at baseline, 2 hours after phlebotomy, 2 days after phlebotomy, and 7 days after phlebotomy. The results found that maximal performance was decreased for at least one week and that submaximal performance was unaffected by blood donation.

Thus, if you are a competitive cyclist, do not donate blood within 7 – 10 days of a competitive race, as your performance will be compromised. If you are a casual cyclist performing submaximally, you may not experience any deleterious effects apart from a higher heart rate than normal from the day after donating."

Note differences between maximal and submaximal.

_________________"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study.""I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

I enjoy my racing (which I do year round), but it isn't my livelihood. So I would rather donate blood and help others, knowing that it may impact my racing in what amounts to only 3 or 4 times a year...

When donating, I'll try and schedule it earlier in the week to give me more days before racing. I also commute daily by bike and still do on the days I donate, I just keep the intensity low and cruise that afternoon. I sometime feel flat for 2 or three days, but have still sometimes raced in this time after donating and still do okay.

Personally I just don't donate a week or two prior to a States or National event.

tapeworm...any studies on the same effects of platelet donation? giving blood wasn't manly enough for me, so I stepped up to platelets , and sometimes even give a double dose. i know i feel hugely tired after a double, and have dropped back to singles since racing season is in full swing, but wonder if the effects of it are greater than whole blood donation.

When I donated blood, a few years back, I could tell the effects out to about 6 weeks. Where I had previously peaked at a heart-rate of ~170-175, my rides for the following week regularly exceeded 185 even when I wasn't working hard. It may be that younger people recover more quickly. The regulations say you can't give blood more than once every 6 weeks. Based on my records of that donation, it took the full 6 weeks before I was back where I started.

When I donated blood, a few years back, I could tell the effects out to about 6 weeks. Where I had previously peaked at a heart-rate of ~170-175, my rides for the following week regularly exceeded 185 even when I wasn't working hard. It may be that younger people recover more quickly. The regulations say you can't give blood more than once every 6 weeks. Based on my records of that donation, it took the full 6 weeks before I was back where I started.

I have no personal experience but my google search mostly turned up experiences with runners and tri athletes. The results were all over the place but most people said it was 4-6 weeks to fully recover to 100% and more consistent with your experience.

_________________"Really fast people are frustrating, but they make you faster. When you get faster, you might frustrate someone else."

Motorthings, the half life of platelets is about 7 days, so platelet production is pretty fast, and platelet pheresis will have no appreciable effect on clotting function. Platelets obviously do not participate in oxygen carriage, so your hemoglobin level doesn't change either. The pheresis machine, however, uses citrate to prevent the blood that is recirculated from clotting. Some of the citrate gets back into your circulation and binds ionized calcium (important in muscle contraction)- that's why you feel kind of jittery. It's important to replete the calcium afterwards (when I used to donate platelets they would feed me Tums during the run).

I'm not surprised that there is a measurable decrement in peak performance after red cell donation- even with a really brisk (endogenous) EPO response you need at least a week to make back the RBC's.

I was OK for everything *except* high-performance cycling within a day. When I rode my bike a week later, my peak heartrate was still 10-15 bpm higher than I could achieve prior to donating blood. On a regular hour-long climb that I ride (solo) every week, I didn't match my pre-donation times until 6 weeks had passed. This isn't comparing my output to other riders, it's a semi-objective test against a fixed goal.

It's not that I was impaired from normal daily life. My long recovery time might have included lost fitness, not just blood replacement. But it took a long time to get back to the performance I had prior to donating.

I was OK for everything *except* high-performance cycling within a day. When I rode my bike a week later, my peak heartrate was still 10-15 bpm higher than I could achieve prior to donating blood. On a regular hour-long climb that I ride (solo) every week, I didn't match my pre-donation times until 6 weeks had passed. This isn't comparing my output to other riders, it's a semi-objective test against a fixed goal.

It's not that I was impaired from normal daily life. My long recovery time might have included lost fitness, not just blood replacement. But it took a long time to get back to the performance I had prior to donating.

Thanks for the responses to my post. However as I was asking for personal experiences when you say you didn't reach your pre-donation time for 6 weeks on that particular one hour climb you pretty much answered my question. Your point that during your recovery time (the 6 weeks) you may have lost fitness due to the inability to possibly work as hard is a good one.

I know I push myself as hard as possible on my rides as I assume others do so I am looking for the ability to recover whatever peak I had before the donation.

_________________"Really fast people are frustrating, but they make you faster. When you get faster, you might frustrate someone else."

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